Absolution
by zosimos
Summary: Sceptre of Flamel: All it took was one instant to destroy Roy Mustang's life.


It was remarkable how quickly everything in his life could change. How a life's work could be decimated in an instant, one horrifying action undoing years of trust and support. Even the things he had unknowingly taken for granted, the friendships cultivated and hardened through the fires of war demolished as casually as a stack of dominoes.

Roy Mustang honestly didn't know which was worse. The very deliberate deconstruction of every thing he'd worked to achieve in his life, or the fact that the monster who wore his face made him watch it all come apart.

It was ruin. His life was in shambles. While the monster wore his skin he demolished everything worth caring about in Roy Mustang's life and by the time Edward cleaved the creature in twain there was nothing left for him to rebuild with. It was all over.

Samael had eviscerated Roy's dreams and laid them bare for the world to see. He had tormented him, tortured Roy with whispers in every moment of the hideous, foul things he would do to his friends, things he would do to Edward - and all Roy could do was rage helplessly, locked within the barrier of his own mind, eyes to see and ears to hear and powerless to do anything else. He was unable to shut it out and unable to turn it off; the only thing he could do was watch.

He watched as the demon slaughtered people with his own hands, with his own alchemy. He watched as the creature ignited a war within the city for the purposes of a distraction while he furthered his own plans. He could do nothing but watch, and observe, and he knew with a rage that he could hardly keep a handle on that that was the creature's goal.

It wanted Roy to hate him.

It wanted Roy to let the rage and despair swallow him. If Roy fell prey to those emotions he knew he would open himself to exactly what the demon wanted. He wanted Roy as his vessel, as his lackey —- he knew that his power was dwindling and Samael did not trust any of his lieutenants to take over for him. He was grooming Roy Mustang for a fall into darkness, to take the reins when Samael's flaming star fell from the night sky.

He couldn't understand why this was happening. He didn't understand when Samael - wearing Roy's face - attacked Edward in their bed. Roy wanted to close his eyes, wanted to cover his ears. He couldn't stand to look into Edward's face and see the betrayal there, did not want to hear his voice raised in fear and fury. Roy couldn't understand why Edward didn't fight back until he realized that Edward wasn't seeing the monster ... he was seeing Roy.

It was a gut wound. Roy couldn't stand it. And he could do nothing but suffer through it, he could do nothing but try to keep himself from going mad.

When Edward appeared before Samael-as-Roy again, Roy couldn't believe it. He had never seen Edward like this, back straight and hair loose, wearing armor that seemed to reflect the color of his golden eyes. He looked so very magnificent and so very deadly, and Roy knew his intentions.

His brilliant, stunning alchemist, blond hair stained copper, blood running down his face, automail arm barely still on as an afterthought. Edward on the floor, curled in on himself, breathing through a mouth full of blood as Samael - still wearing Roy's face - impaled him through the side with a short sword, pinning him to the stone floor.

He intended to kill Edward, to torture him to death in front of Roy and Roy was helpless to do anything but watch. He could scream and rage and curse the demon who had taken his body for a plaything and all the creature did was laugh.

And then Edward got to his knees.

Edward had the greatest reserves of willpower that Roy Mustang had ever seen. He was on his knees, sword torn from his side, armor spoiled by the amount of blood that had been spilled on it. He had to hold his automail shoulder just to make sure the arm didn't rip the port out of his flesh as it dangled and yet still he was on his knees, eyes bright and defiant.

For the first time Roy realized that Edward could see him. Not the monster wearing his face, but Roy Mustang caged in his own body, unable to control it. And if Edward could fight like this, if Edward could have this sort of faith in Roy then Roy couldn't let him down.

He'd let too many friends down already.

Roy Mustang found the cracks in Samael's barricade. They were small, so small as to be almost insignificant but they were there. Cracks that stretched like spiderwebs across his psyche, and Roy put pressure on them, with the intent to bring down the wall that Samael had built around Roy's presence in his own body.

When that wall came down, forcefully, Roy Mustang took back his body for just a moment, holding tight to the ensnared Samael inside of him and looking up into Edward's eyes.

He had never seen Edward looking so beautiful, covered in blood with wings of the purest white extended out behind him, a double-bladed sword held above his head, clasped tightly in his left hand. His arm was shaking.

Roy could feel Samael battering down the walls inside of him, breaking apart in seconds what took him weeks to build, and felt his eyes fill staring up at Edward. As the demon tore free inside of him, Roy spoke the first words in his own voice in months.

"Kill me."

Edward Elric hesitated only a moment — and then swung his sword.

* * *

><p>Sceptre of Flamel Prompt#1: Defiance<p> 


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